


Meandering

by savethetribbles



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Campfires, M/M, Snippets, Stranded
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:01:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29390928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savethetribbles/pseuds/savethetribbles
Summary: Jim knows something about Spock that even Spock hasn't caught on to.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock
Comments: 2
Kudos: 62





	Meandering

**Author's Note:**

> _You've got this golden way of making my body sway  
>  Of making my mind fly away  
> Of making it fly  
> It's a world I love to be in_
> 
> _Me, I've got my own little magic  
>  And I'm not tryna wreak havoc  
> It's just that sometimes I see something and I just need to have it_
> 
> _Last night when you pulled through  
>  I put a spell on the moon  
> It was three times the size  
> In your moon-lit eyes  
> And I sang you an old tune  
> Mom sang me when I was half the size  
> And I looked at you and your moon-lit eyes  
> And your moon-lit eyes_
> 
> Witches, Alice Phoebe Lou

The air was thick that night, a warm gauzy glow around the skin. Spock removed his right boot and shook out a rock, the sound of its drop amplifying the crack of the fire. Then he shook out the other. 

“I used to love camping,” Jim said, laid back against a larger stone, his shirt folded under his head for padding. His fingers crossed over his stomach. “Didn’t have to brush my teeth.”

Spock counted the passing of their ninth hour on Galton V and looked out over the scrubby surface of their landscape, minutely distressed by their predicament. The Enterprise was right above them, kept apart from them by the effects of an ill-predicted solar flare. It was his own error that they were stranded as such, he knew it to be true -- but the captain had insisted on “stretching his legs,” being the first to view the rumored ruins of a derelict empire towards the southern hemisphere before the science crews began their career duty, and Spock had just … come along. Importantly, pragmatically. Like always. 

“Did you used to camp on Vulcan?” 

A streak of light passed through the sky as Spock looked to his captain from the side of his eye, mouth taut. “No,” he replied simply. “I was, however, trained in survival, and my training included weeks spent away from my traditional tools and comforts.” 

“Edgy.” 

The central flame of their fire twisted in a breeze and then settled again, eventually settling into a small, content fire with a base of red hot ember. Spock watched Jim push a barely burnt bundle of branches closer to the heat, and Jim watched Spock’s profile erupt in the color of its catch. 

“We called it camping. Maybe that took some of the pressure off -- to know that the learning was incidental.”

The Vulcan hummed, unimpressed, visualizing the Vulcan Learning Center of his childhood. 

“You disagree.”

“I do not meander, Captain,” he answered. He looked over to his captain with the drag of an ancient seafarer undressing his ears to the Siren, blinking against the glow of his captain’s face at the flame, refusing to look at his body. The squeeze of the night's arid air against his Vulcan-amended regulation undershirt and uniform filled him with distinct pleasure. “Perhaps I simply do not understand.”

Jim scratched idly at the hair on his chest and laughed. “That is a misread, Mr. Spock.” Spock drew his eyes away from his captain’s fingers without noticing they were there, shocked at the accusation. 

“You believe I meander. Maybe even that I seek to learn incidentally.” His expression was stern, though the shadows of the fresh flame softened it against his will. 

“Yes,” Jim replied, and to which Spock responded simultaneously, “Why?”

Jim paused, grinning like a mutt into the eyes of a person that’s dared to love it. He turned onto his side and propped his bare elbow into the dirt. “Because I’m in love with you,” he said easily into the breeze, eyes wide in ambient orange flickering. “And I know you.”

The air cracked and Spock worried for a moment that his skin had burst, stretched tight and bubbling beneath the planet’s climate and the fire in front of him, his entire source of light. A whisper of elation unknown to him since childhood smoldered under a cynicism brought on as he looked away from Jim and to the stars, to their world. 

“What do you know about me?” the fire asked in his stead, licking the stars, touching Jim.

He felt Jim next to him, pressed against his skin, although still yards away. Smiling. “That you’re on a journey with me, Spock. And that we’re taking our time.”


End file.
